Fumes down there clung thick - iron-tang of blood mixed with sour breath of labor, cut through by the burn of low-grade liquor.
Flickering torchlight danced across the ring of snarling wolves, their eyes bright like embers in the night. Out here, the Silver Fang pack treated Friday nights like a ritual, different every time but always loud. This evening, they handed me over to their best fighter - my gift on turning twenty.
Alone in flesh, no fur, no change permitted. Not a single transformation. Here I stand - mortal bones, soft skin - facing something massive, locked into power, built beyond human scale.
His nickname was Crusher.
I called him dead man walking.
Fangs bared, he lunged ahead, sure of a quick win.
It almost was.
A sharp crack split through my chest when he hit me. Blood filled my mouth.
That one sent me flying before I even saw it coming. Ground met my back harder than expected.
Sound crashed through the air. Wagers climbed fast. A glass bottle flew past, exploding near me.
My laugh came first. Out of the cut on my mouth, blood spilled, yet my laughter grew even stronger.
It made him angry.
A low growl rumbled as he lifted a huge paw, claws tensed - this could be the last thing I ever see. His movement froze mid-air, muscles coiled like wire beneath thick fur, waiting only for the right moment. Stillness followed, sharp and heavy, while breath caught somewhere deep in his chest.
It was around then I packed up and left.
That ninth year crouched beneath them carved shapes into memory - where each sentry planted his boots, the stretch left in the shackle hugging my bone, how Crusher always tucked the blade just behind his hip whenever pride made him careless.
Beneath his swing I dropped, then rose where he couldn't block - my blade slipping through the gap just below his ribs.
A single turn. Rising now. Straight toward the center.
A noise came out of him - sharp, wheezing - as if something inside had snapped. Down he went without warning.
My pulse echoed through the stillness, thick and sudden. Quiet pressed down like a weight across my chest.
Blasts tore the gates open from within.
Fog curled around his boots as Alpha Kai Blackthorn emerged, quiet as a shadow slipping into a room nobody invited him to.
Towering near eight feet, maybe more. His shadow swallowed the flickering light whole. A dark suit clung tight, untouched by grime despite bending steel frames like paper. Dust dared not land where he stepped.
Staring hard, his eyes - icy, faint blue, nearly white - fixed upon the corpse. That gaze stayed. It did not waver. Stillness held everything. The air felt thin. Light fell flat across the scene. Nothing moved but dust. A breath might have broken it. Silence pressed in. Those eyes remained open. Unblinking. Watching what should not be watched.
Then on me.
There by the blade, left deep in his brother's ribs. It stayed where it fell, fixed like a secret between them.
Silence held him. Stillness took over. His eyes stayed fixed, unchanging.
The moment he said those words, a shiver ran through the whole pit. It wasn't loud - just quiet - but still everything shook.
"Chain her."
A sharp click echoed as cold metal locked onto my skin. My arms were seized by two men in uniform, their grip unrelenting.
Grinning, even as hurt cut deep, copper thick on my tongue.
"Do your worst, Alpha," I rasped. "I've survived everything else."
Footsteps cracked through silence as Kai moved ahead, each step grinding shards beneath heavy soles.
A step from me, he halted. The scent of winter pine clung to him, mixed with traces of gunpowder rising off his skin.
A tremor ran through his hand as he moved closer, pausing just before touch. His fingertip traced the edge of my face, careful, quiet. A single thread of hair lifted away from skin slick with red. The moment hung without sound.
Quiet now, his words slipped out barely loud enough for anyone but me to catch.
"Oh, little wolf… I haven't even started."
After that, he faced the group standing beside him.
"Put her in my car. She's coming home with me."
Down went the light, then came Kai Blackthorn staring at his brother lying still. That image stuck - him motionless beside the fallen form - as hands pulled me back into darkness.
And smiling.
Just a little.